Armstrong in bubbly mood as Postmen make a late delivery

Wednesday 10 July 2002 20.35 EDT
First published on Wednesday 10 July 2002 20.35 EDT

"Drink bubbly, you'll ride lighter," read one roadside sign amid the serried ranks of vines but after yesterday's team time-trial the only Tour de France favourite with any right to celebrate was Lance Armstrong. The triple Tour winner pulled ahead of all but two of the opposition, his team avoided any disaster like last year's crash, and the bad luck that usually accompanies this stage was visited on others.

This stage had been the only chink in Armstrong's armour in the past two years and a third upset beckoned four miles from the finish when the American's US Postal Service team were timed 38sec behind the Once squad of Joseba Beloki and Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano, who finished third and fifth last year.

"We had some difficulty getting in our rhythm and couldn't get the right formation," said the Olympic champion Viatcheslav Ekimov, one of Armstrong's team-mates.

But Once faded, handicapped by the loss of one of their strongest riders, Mikel Pradera, with a puncture, which meant that with eight team riders left the fatigue began to tell. By the finish they were only 16sec ahead of Armstrong's Postmen, who turned potential disaster into their best-ever result in this stage or its equivalent.

The American outfit were fortunate to be spared any of the mechanical problems, especially punctures, which turn this test of collective strength into a test of team managers' decision-making. When one of the nine squad cyclists gets a flat tyre, the dilemma is whether the remaining eight should push on and run the risk of fading, as Once did, or wait and lose 30-45sec. It is a judgment of Solomon, and yesterday the 1996 Tour winner Bjarne Riis, who manages the Danish CSC-Tiscali team, got it wrong.

CSC were already one man short when the Swede Michael Sandstod punctured 12 miles from the finish. Riis's team, which includes last year's king of the mountains Laurent Jalabert and an outsider in the American Tyler Hamilton, had led all the way, but their boss made the worst call possible: he decided to leave Sandstod, then changed his mind, then changed his mind again. The time was lost and so was the cyclist. Jalabert, who stood to wear the yellow jersey for the third time in his career had they won, was understandably spitting blood at the finish.

Instead the maillot jaune now sits on the shoulders of Gonzalez de Galdeano, the first Spaniard to lead the Tour since Miguel Indurain in 1995. The 28-year-old Basque finished fifth to Armstrong last year but is unlikely to get ideas above his station: the American is only 7sec behind.

"The team time-trial doesn't decide who wins the Tour, the individual time-trials and the mountains do that," the Spaniard said. "I'm happy for the team that we won, but it doesn't mean much."

Armstrong will barely be worried that he is 4sec behind Beloki or that Hamilton is handily placed, 46sec adrift. Most important, the Kelme pair of Santiago Botero and Oscar Sevilla lost just over two minutes, which is not insurmountable but could easily be doubled in the next key stage, Monday's individual time-trial in Brittany.

The pleasant surprise for British fans is the fine form of David Millar. Two years ago he lost the yellow jersey during the equivalent stage as his Cofidis team went to pieces, and last year he suffered horribly in the team time-trial after his first-stage crash. Yesterday, however, he was one of Cofidis's strongest men as they raced coherently to fifth along the Route Touristique du Champagne, and he is now 23rd, 1min 40sec off the lead.

Today the field heads for Rouen and what should be the fourth bunch sprint in an opening week which would have ideally suited Mario Cipollini, the winner of 12 Tour stages in recent years, who shocked the cycling world by announcing his retirement late on Tuesday night. It is a bizarre decision: although he is 35, he was widely expected to continue racing at least until October and the world road-race championship, on a pancake flat course where his speed would have made him the favourite.

The Lion King explained that he was quitting "because I feel bitter at not being able to ride the Tour and have the chance to win a stage", his team having been ruled not good enough, and because his current sponsor, the cosmetic company Acqua e Sapone, "does not recognise my value".

If this is not merely a bluff to force a new contract out of his sponsor it is entirely in keeping with Cipollini's image as an unpredictable showman, but it is also a bad blow to Italian cycling, which has been rocked by drug scandals in recent years and apparently has now lost its only star with a "clean" image.